


Born Under a Bad Sign

by FlashInThePan



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Nightwing (Comics), Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Found Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Kid Fic, Recovery, Support Systems, aftermath of rape
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-21
Updated: 2017-12-05
Packaged: 2018-06-03 14:27:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6614188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlashInThePan/pseuds/FlashInThePan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dick Grayson was born a circus brat, made an orphan, raised a hero, but he's never considered himself a victim. Confronted with the aftermath of something he thought he'd put behind him almost a year ago, he's forced to accept that even a son of the Batman needs to be saved sometimes. (Set five years after Season One, but it goes AU before Season 2.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

A/N: This is set five years after Season One, but it goes AU before Season 2. Things like Jason and Tula's death still happened, but this won't be following the Season Two blueprint, which means no Reach Invasion, Kaldur's not undercover, etc. This will be twenty chapters, and is the first in a trilogy. Dick and Tim are the only two Bat-bros in this one, but the sequels will have Jason and Damian as well, just to head off some questions as to whether this will ultimately include Red Hood and Damian-as-Robin.

You don't need to have any knowledge of the comics to follow this, but I am drawing from some pre-nu52 Nightwing storylines, specifically stuff with Blockbuster and Tarantula. But that will all be explained in the context of the fic, so for anyone who's just a fan of the show, you should be able to follow along fine.

Also, this fic deals heavily with the aftermath of rape and its recovery, so massive trigger warnings for that, though there won't be anything graphic onscreen.

 

CHAPTER 1

 

“Wally. I need you.”

Wally West was a creature of habit. He was also extremely fast. Between the time he picked up the phone and the moment his best friend’s tone registered, a half a dozen good-natured insults had already escaped his mouth. Then audio signals caught up to whatever part of his brain controlled the infamous Kid Mouth, and his jaw slammed shut. He pulled the phone away from his ear and stared at it like an unfamiliar piece of alien tech that needed a Green Lantern to explain it. There were none present, and his stare lingered long enough that Artemis rose halfway from her chair across the table from him.

“Dick?” He questioned softly. Half hoping this was some kind of trick or trap or alternate universe swap, as any of the above would be more familiar ground than the raspy, strangled sounds transmitted across the phone. If it were anyone else, Wally would say they’d been crying. But Dick was a Bat, even if him and his old man were on the outs at the moment, and they were allergic to that basic physiological need. If Jason’s funeral couldn’t coax a few sobs out of his older brother, Wally really wasn’t prepared to handle a situation that could. “You alright, buddy?”

“Yeah. No. I…can you come to Bludhaven? My apartment. I…”

“Need me. Right, got it. Say no more. Are you hurt? Should I call Bruce?”

“No!” Even expecting it as he did, the vehemence still managed to take Wally by surprise. He’d been trying to get Dick to talk about whatever issues were keeping he and Bruce at arms length for over a year now. But it wasn’t anger or bitterness fueling this refusal. There was panic underneath it. And Dick had never been afraid of the Bat. He was the only one who had never in his life been afraid of the Bat. “Just you. Don’t call the Team, or Babs. Please.”

“Okay. What about Artemis?” Wally tried, testing the waters. His girlfriend stared anxiously, a thousand questions of her own apparent on her usually taciturn face. “Can I bring Artemis? Maybe she can help too.”

“Yeah. Okay,” Dick said at last. Wally wasted no time nodding vigorously at the girl in question, and she darted out of the room. No doubt grabbing their coats and arranging for someone to look after their dog. They were so _sympatico_. He took a moment to revel in that, cling to that bit of truth, of familiarity in the face of a Dick Grayson expressing uncertainty. The first Robin didn’t do uncertainty in the way that the Flashes didn’t do slow. It did not compute. Error, error. Blue screen of death. Reboot required. “I’m okay. I just…”

“Need us,” Wally finished for him, subtly stressing the _us_ to reaffirm that more than one would be coming to his aid. Wasn’t sure if it registered, if it’d do any good even if it did. Whatever this was, it was uncharted territory. A knot of unease churned in his gut. He wasn’t going to like whatever he found at Dick’s apartment, was he? He wasn’t going to like it at all. “We’re on our way. Hang in there.”

“Yeah.” He heard his oldest friend take a deep breath. Steadying himself - but in the way normal people did. Not the way a son of the Batman did.

“Wally? Hurry.”

“Let’s go,” he was shouting to Artemis even as he hung up the phone. She darted back into the room, coats in hand and eyes wide.

“Wally, what the hell is wrong? Is Dick okay?”

“I don’t know. I have no idea. He said to hurry.”

She had just enough time to flinch at that before he scooped her up and dashed out the door, making for the nearest Zeta tube at top speed. She knew as well as anyone - as well as Dick - that there were certain things you just didn’t need to say to Wally, as a given.

First and foremost of those things?

_Hurry._

 

*****

 

It took fifteen seconds to make it to the Zeta tube the League had installed near their college. A whole ten seconds to input the various passcodes and bio-checks needed to initiate the transport sequences before they zeta-ed to Mt. Justice. It just wasn’t practical to allow for point to point transit across the entire zeta tube network, and so a few places like Mt. Justice and the Watchtower acted as central hubs for all other access points. 

While they all talked on the phone constantly, Wally and Artemis had only been back to Mt. Justice twice since ‘retiring’ to try the college life a year and a half ago. Both times they’d been called in to assist with extreme emergencies, and so they should have been prepared for Conner and M’Gann to dash in at the sound of their names.

“No time to talk, catch you later,” Wally shouted back to their confused faces even as he punched in the commands to take them to the Bludhaven tube. The world fell away in another dizzying display of blinding golden light. It occurred to him he’d done nothing to convince his former teammates that their unexpected arrival wasn’t something to be concerned about. 

He wouldn’t be surprised if even now they were calling up the directory to see where they’d gone, if they might be following along themselves to see what had him and Artemis in such a rush to get to Dick. He was pretty sure that wasn’t what Dick wanted right now. He couldn’t make himself care. He was too busy resenting every second it took to navigate the half mile between the Bludhaven tube and Dick’s apartment. 

Bludhaven wasn’t like Gotham. There wasn’t a Wayne Manor, aloof and alone on a hill outside the city limits where a speedster could rush to and from without attracting notice. Just a squalid, derelict downtown in which Dick’s apartment building was one of many. It squatted in the center of his block, flanked on both sides by buildings equal in their neglect and decay.

Dick liked it. His own origins were humble, and he’d never needed the decadence that surrounded him once Bruce took him in at age eight. Better yet, with all the tabloids sporting their own theories on where in the world the oldest Wayne heir was off gallivanting, no one was looking for him here, and privacy was worth its weight in gold to him.

But to Wally, all it meant at the moment was he was reduced to normal, human speeds if he didn’t want to attract the wrong kind of attention and lead someone to question what a metahuman might want with this particular building. He and Artemis dashed hand in hand down the cracked sidewalks, their breath misting in the frozen mid-December air, weaving in and out of the late night crowds. He hated every single person forcing him to step back, reorient himself, find a way around them, losing valuable seconds each and every time. His stomach cramped painfully.

Dick buzzed them up the second Artemis hit R. Grayson on the panel outside the main lobby. They took the stairs two at a time - even there, Wally was forced to forgo his superspeed as an old lady waddled down the stairs opposite them. Finally they reached the top floor and spilled out into the hallway. Artemis pounded on Dick’s door. Wally didn’t waste time with that and pulled out his key.

The whole way over, his thoughts had been consumed with many varied and colorful possibilities, scenarios, explanations. He was prepared to be ambushed by ninjas, by shapeshifters, by killer androids. Wally rushed into the room, ready to confront some supervillain holding Dick hostage at gunpoint, even knowing a mere hostage crisis could never bring panic to Dick’s voice. But still, he’d thought. Maybe it was Vandal Savage. Maybe Ra’s or the Joker or some alien invasion beachhead centered in Dick’s apartment. He was prepared for anything.

Anything except a baby swaddled in a pile of blankets on the floor. Dick was huddled up against the wall across from it, staring at it like some kind of poisonous snake. He didn’t even look up when Wally and Artemis barged into the room, just stayed seated on the floor, arms clutching his knees to his chest, his eyes locked on the small child with a lost, glazed look in them. 

“Hey Dick. We’re here,” Wally said, when half a minute passed without his friend acknowledging their presence. Artemis shut the door gently behind them. The lock clicked shut and resonated in the empty quiet. They exchanged a glance. 

“Dick? Whose kid is this?” Artemis asked.

Seconds - always so much longer to a speedster than to a normal human - ticked by with agonizing slowness. Wally edged further into the room so as not to spook his clearly rattled friend. Artemis lingered by the kid, both of them looking him over for any signs of injury or abnormalities more as a matter of habit than anything else. Couldn’t have been more than days or weeks old at most, judging by what little experience Wally had babysitting Uncle Barry’s twins. Old enough to keep its eyes open…tiny blue dots glaring up suspiciously. Face red and pinched in the manner of a newborn who’d exhausted itself screaming - he couldn’t tell at a glance if it was a boy or a girl. Gut said boy, but he was trying not to listen to his gut right now. His gut was also telling him something was horrifically wrong and to run the fuck away, and that just wasn’t an option.

“Mine,” Dick said at last. His voice was a bare ghost of a whisper.

“Okay.” Wally nodded, swallowing thickly. He wasn’t a stupid man, no matter what image his usual happy-go-lucky persona might convey. He’d suspected as much from the second he laid eyes on the kid, but the answer did nothing to answer the much more obvious questions of ‘ _how_ ’, ‘ _why_ ’, and ‘ _what the fuck is going on_ ’. “Who's the lucky mom? Anyone I know?”

“Tarantula.”

 _That_ he had absolutely not been prepared for. It threw him just long enough for Artemis to get the drop on him, gripping his arm like an iron clamp. She squeezed a painful warning before his big mouth had a chance to scream out ‘ _omg what the fuck were you thinking how could you sleep with that nutcase what is wrong with you_ ’ because, yeah, okay, so that probably wouldn’t be helpful right now.

Wally had never had the dubious honor of meeting the vigilante who’d done more to fuck with his best friend’s head than all of Gotham’s crazies combined, but everything he did know about her had him raising his metaphorical hackles at the mere mention of her name. A non-powered, self-appointed vigilante with little training and even fewer boundaries, she’d been obsessed with Nightwing from the moment he debuted in Bludhaven, trying to get some distance from his adopted father in Gotham.

Problem was, that obsession had taken a dark turn when she found her morals didn’t meet the rigid standards the Batman had ingrained in his son. When Dick wouldn’t accept her help in dealing with Blockbuster, a crime lord related to one of the Team’s oldest enemies, she decided to pledge her allegiance to Blockbuster instead. With her help, he’d uncovered Dick’s identity and launched an all out war on Nightwing and anyone close to him. Of course, then he’d fucked her over too, and infuriated at the betrayal, Tarantula murdered him. Right in front of a shell-shocked Dick Grayson, who’d already been driven to the breaking point by Blockbuster’s assault on everyone in the city he knew and cared about. 

He’d turned her over to the authorities of course, but the fallout had been…bad. Almost a year later, and his best buddy still visibly wore the emotional scars from those events. Wally and the rest of the Team had done everything they could think of to help Dick put himself back together, but no matter how much they reinforced that Dick wasn’t responsible for Blockbuster’s murder, the one person Dick truly needed to hear that from was still keeping his distance. Whatever wedge had been driven between Dick and Bruce by Jason’s death, it still lingered. And as long as it did, these particular scars weren’t going anywhere. 

Still. He’d been getting better. He had been, Wally was sure of it. Smiling again, laughing, showing up for casual nights out with the rest of the Team. Nothing like this.

“How did this happen, Dick?” Artemis asked. Her voice was brisk, professional. No judgment. She was asking for a debrief, not a defense. She’d always been better at detaching than Wally was. “Walk us through it.”

“I can’t…I don’t really remember.” Dick remained focused on the baby. He seemed to grow agitated when they blocked his line of sight, so they abandoned that idea, kept to the side. His own blue eyes were clouded and confused, and it only then hit Wally that he was wearing his Nightwing costume, but with his mask off. It looked like he’d thrown it to the other side of the room. “I mean. I remember it happening, just not really…”

“The details are fuzzy,” Artemis clarified. Nothing audible changed about her tone, but Wally knew his girlfriend well enough to know that something had changed for her. Her face took on a slightly harsher cast, the difference almost invisible to the naked eye but practically a blaring red warning siren to him. She’d jumped to some conclusion, something had clicked for her and Wally shook his head, racing to keep up. He wasn’t used to being the one left behind. What was he missing?

“Yeah.” 

“Can you remember where it happened?”

Wally creased his forehead as the archer knelt, gently coaching their friend. Not that he wasn’t relieved to hear there’d only been the one time, but he knew Dick and Tarantula had worked together for a period of weeks and things did tend to happen when two young, attractive and very athletic vigilantes were working in close proximity and had a lot of adrenaline to burn off. How had Artemis been so quick to figure out that they’d only slept together once? And what difference did the setting make? Shouldn’t they be focusing on the elephant - sorry, the baby - in the room?

“The roof.”

“Which roof, Dick?”

Silence. 

“Nightwing. What building was it?”

“His.”

Another beat. Anyone but Wally would have missed the slight hitch in his girlfriend’s voice. “Blockbuster’s?”

“Yeah.”

“It was right after, wasn’t it?”

Right after what? Wait.

_What?_

Wally couldn’t help himself. He flinched. No, call it what it is, he fucking staggered, the back of his knees hitting Dick’s bed as he fell on his ass with a thump. The other two ignored him. 

“I couldn’t…I didn’t know what was happening,” Dick whispered hoarsely. Pleading. “She pulled me up there, said we had to get out of there, and I…just went. But then we didn’t go anywhere, and I didn’t know why, but she just kept saying it was okay, it was all going to be okay and I just went with it I just let her…I didn’t…I didn’t mean to, it wasn’t like…”

“Dick! Hey, hey, breathe, its okay,” Artemis shushed him, pulling back when he dodged away from her touch. Wally just stared, like the useless fuck he was. What were they talking about? What were they _saying_? “You were in shock. You weren’t in control. You know that Dick. You know how these things happen. It wasn’t your fault.”

Dick kept panting. Artemis kept shushing. Wally kept staring. Round and round and round they went.

“Did you know she was pregnant?” She asked, pressing again once Dick’s breathing leveled out. Wally wanted to shout at her, yell at her to knock it the fuck off, that she was going to give him a panic attack, leave him alone. He couldn’t find the words. 

“No. She called from prison a couple of times, said she needed to see me but I didn’t want to…I mean, I should have but I just…”

“Hey, hey, its okay, I was just asking, you don’t need to explain yourself. When did you find out?”

“Tonight.”

Wally was screaming, he was pretty sure of it, so why weren’t they looking at him, why couldn’t they hear him screaming?

“Okay. Walk me through that, how did that happen?”

“She called me again, on one of the burners I use as Nightwing. Said Nightwing needed to come see her or she’d start calling Dick Grayson and let everyone wonder why she was calling him.”

“Bitch,” Artemis swore softly. 

“When I got there, she showed me him and said I needed to take him or he was going to go into the system. That she’d explained ‘about his father’,” Dick broke for a bitter laugh that came out more like a sob, “and her lawyer got the warden and a couple of other higher-ups to let me take him off the books because of the danger he’d be in as a known child of a hero with my reputation and history. She spread around who his father was to push their hand, make sure they didn’t have a choice.”

“Bitch,” Artemis swore again, with more vehemence. “She could have called Dick Grayson. He’d have had more than enough pull to get him through legal channels. Then again, you were seventeen nine months ago. I don’t suppose she was eager to voluntarily add statutory rape to her list of crimes even if nothing else could be proven.”

Dick shook his head, getting worked up all over again. “You don’t get it. She wanted everyone to know. She wants people to know he’s Nightwing’s son. I walked out of there with him. People saw, ‘Mis. Everyone saw. I didn’t know what else to do, I had to get him safe, I had to get him home…”

“Why didn’t you tell us?” The words ripped themselves out of Wally’s throat before he could stop them, knowing they were a mistake even as they happened. “Jesus Dick, you never said a fucking word, why didn’t you tell us what she did, we could have helped! Goddammit, why do you always have to be such a fucking Bat about everything, we could have done something!”

“Wally!” Artemis roared, honest to God fucking _roared_ and he rocked back, misdirected rage buried underneath an avalanche of guilt as his best friend practically cowered against the wall. He had a second that lasted an eternity to register the disappointment in his girlfriend’s eyes before she dismissed him and turned back to the best friend he should be comforting, he should be helping, he should be…anything.

“Dick. Nightwing. I need you to focus,” she said. She grabbed his shoulders and forced his attention. “You can compartmentalize this, you have the training, okay? Let’s take one thing at a time. There’s an innocent at stake here, right? The baby. The baby’s innocent, right?”

“Yes!” Dick snapped his head up, horrified. “Of course.”

“So he needs to be protected, right? Before we do anything else, we need to focus on figuring out what the best thing to do for him right at this moment is, yeah?”

Dick nodded. “Yeah.”

“Okay. So do you want one of us to take him home to our place? He’ll be safe there, or we can keep him here. Which do you think will be better for him? Somewhere else? Or here?”

He hesitated, looking past her at the baby, clearly torn.

“Do you want him to stay? Or do you want him to go somewhere else tonight?”

“No,” he whispered. Shook his head. Cleared his throat. Spoke with a little more confidence. “No I don’t want him to go.”

“Okay. Okay, so then we need to find someone who can help us with him, right? He needs to be taken care of before we can worry about anything else, right?”

“Right,” Dick said, wary.

“Okay. So how about if Wally goes and gets Black Canary for us? I think she’s the best person to help here. She’s not going to talk to anyone you don’t want her to, and she’ll know what to do, don’t you think?”

Sometimes Wally just really loved his beautiful brilliant blonde bow-woman. Like, obviously he always did, but sometimes he just really needed to kiss her for being so much smarter than everyone else. Of course Black Canary would know what to do, she was a trained psychologist, she’d helped Dick more than anyone over the past year. Why didn’t he think of that?

Dick nodded slowly. “Just Black Canary, right?”

“Right, just her,” Artemis reassured. “Nobody else needs to know yet. It’s best we keep this contained until we come up with a sure plan of action, you know? For the baby’s sake.”

“Yeah. Okay.”

“Alright.” Artemis looked up at Wally, features masked in stern authority. “Wally’s going to go get her and come straight back. He’s not going to stop along the way, he’s not going to talk to anyone else, just there and back again as quick as he can, and we’re going to wait here with the baby. Everyone clear on the plan?”

Both boys nodded. Wally couldn’t help but notice his friend hadn’t looked over at him since his own outburst, and his insides twisted in misery. _That_ he couldn’t blame on Tarantula or Bruce or anything but his own big fat mouth. He bolted up and headed to the door as Artemis continued to talk softly behind him.

“We should probably get the baby off the floor though. Do you want to hold him?”

“I don’t…”

“Here, how about I hold him and come sit next to you. How’s that sound?”

“Okay.”

Wally hesitated by the door, head rested against the frame as he tried to find some kind of reassurance of his own to utter, some kind of penance for being a failure of a friend, for not knowing how to say the right things like Artemis, not having known how to recognize how not okay Dick was this past year. Living in his fantasy land, thinking he was getting better, that everything was just going to go back to normal. Because that ship had sure sailed, huh? Whatever happened next, there was no more pretending that anything was ever going to be the same again. Not after this.

“Wally.”

He jumped and glanced over his shoulder, where his girlfriend was leaning against the wall, nestled up against Dick with the baby in her arms. 

Not the baby.

Dick’s son. 

His eighteen year old best friend’s son. 

Born of rape. 

Because some sick freak had raped his best friend and he hadn’t even known.

“Yeah, I know,” Wally said bitterly. “Hurry.”

Ducking out of the small apartment and slamming the door to keep all the misery and regret and pain trapped inside it, Wally West did what he did best.

He ran.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Your eyes don't deceive you, after over a year of radio silence, I've updated. Full confession: this fic contains themes and subject matter reflective of personal experiences of mine, so writing it was intended as catharsis of sorts. Except, while it was a story I wanted to write, it turned out that when I started it wasn't actually the right time for me to write it. Thus it stalled out quickly. I shelved it until I felt I could write it with more distance and objectivity. Your comments definitely helped inspire me to come back to it though, so I very much thank anyone still interested in this after all this time. I'm not going to commit to a regular update schedule, but I do promise no more year long sabbaticals.
> 
> Quick note for those who read Chapter 1 before: I did make a tiny change, as due to this going AU before S2, Roy doesn't know about Lian yet. She has been born, but Cheshire hasn't told him about her yet. 
> 
> Also: one of the big inspirations for this fic was Weisman making a comment once that in the YJ universe, he imagined Dick and Jason were very close before Jason died. Hence a lot of this is built around them having had a much closer bond than in the comics (something I always wanted to see, tbh).

The reminder to stick to a human pace was a distant memory in his rearview mirror as Wally raced through the streets of Bludhaven. There was a purity to running at his top speeds, a peace and tranquility he desperately needed just now. Where everything fell away into streaks of velocity that framed him like a tunnel of frozen time. Where soundwaves all blurred together into a single cohesive harmony, only reaching his ears as a soft and soothing hum. It was like holding his breath without needing to breathe. Like the world was pregnant with possibility, just waiting for him to decide where he wanted to be, what he wanted to touch. Where everything was accessible to him but nothing could touch him - because as long as he was running, as long as he was in motion, he was untethered, and weightless, and free.

Sometimes, when he was running as fast as he could, Wally imagined that this was what touching perfection must feel like. That if there was a Heaven, it must be something like this feeling, captured in a bottle, played on an endless loop for all eternity. No cares, no regrets. No wants, no hurts, no needs. Just him in motion; just him and his speed. And everything else? Dust in his slipstream, gone and meaningless by the time he turned his head back to look. If a tree falls in the forest and no one’s there to hear it, does it make a sound? If something unpleasant streaks past him, there and gone too fast to register, was it even there?

The problem, as Wally had always seen it, was that perfection was a myth. Heaven was a lie. An object in motion, even him, must inevitably bow to inertia. As far as he ran, as fast as he went, sooner or later, like it or not, he always had to stop.

And when he did, reality always came crashing back over him like a tidal wave that dragged him down, down, way down deep. And each time it took a little bit longer for his head to break the surface. For him to remember how to breathe.

That was why he was having trouble breathing now, of course. It was just the downside of speed. The price of power. Nothing different about today, nuh uh. No other reason for the panic clawing at his throat like the grasping fingers of a drowning man. This was normal. This was his normal. It’d pass like it always did.

He was fine.

He punched his codes into the Zeta-tube’s access keypad. His fingers slipped, sweaty without his frictionless gloves’ protective covering. Slipped again when he hastened to correct himself. Hands shaking, frustration building, numerous high speed attempts prompting error message after error message, faster than the machine could convey them all until it was just a continuous irritating beep that accompanied him through the Zeta-beam’s golden tunnel of light and drowned out the announcement of his arrival. He spun on his heel, whirled back to face the tube he’d just exited as he punched in his new destination.

A palm ripped through the air mere inches from his face. Slammed into the keypad with a jumbled mash of buttons that aborted the sequence. Enough force behind it that the keypad’s casing cracked and splintered. Wally jumped, spun again. Found Superboy’s furious face looming perilously close. There was a joke to be made there about personal space issues, Wally was pretty sure. He reached for it, hunted for it through the labyrinth corridors of his mind. Flung open doors, found the right one. **Joke machine busted** , the sign read. **Try again later.**

“I have to go,” Wally told Connor. It came out flat. Emotionless. Robotic. Yup, he definitely sounded mind-controlled. He tried again.

“Connor, I have to go.”

Yeah, that wasn’t better.

Connor’s nostrils flared, heat building in his cheeks. Some people did angry really well. Made it look sexy, or…dunno, regal or something. Superboy, not so much. He mostly looked like a constipated bull. Riding high on the realization that his joke machine wasn’t totally busted, Wally loaded up that zinger, even if it was likely to get him punched.

“I have to go,” was what came out instead. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t his joke machine that was broken.

Superboy’s lips tightened and he took a step back. Something that was probably his version of concern flashed through his eyes. Wally wasn’t sure. He couldn’t remember cataloging that particular expression before. Connor usually only had like…three. The team’s volatile powerhouse took a deep breath then, schooling his features into something vaguely recognizable as Superman’s How To Comfort Small Children face. There was a cracking sound in Wally’s brain. It could be tectonic activity from the Boy of Steel unearthing facial muscles previously buried under mountains of teenage alien clone angst. Or it could be the sky was falling, maybe. Tough call.

“What the hell is going on?” Connor demanded. “Where’s Artemis? Is Nightwing in some kind of trouble?”

“I can’t tell you,” Wally said, still emotionless, since the only emotion he seemed to have on hand at the moment was panic. And fear. And rage. And…and…okay, he had lots of emotions on hand apparently, but none of them were gonna work here, none of them were what he needed, or what was going to help Dick, or like. Just. No. Emotions were not helpful right at the moment. Emotions bad. He hurried through the rest of Superboy’s questions as though reading from a phone book. Did they still have those? Hmm. “She’s with Nightwing. He’s fine.”

Connor narrowed his eyes. “I don’t believe you.”

“That’s because I’m lying,” Wally said before he could stop his mouth. Ugh. Why. “I have to go.”

“To Star City?”

M’Gann swept in between the two of them like an angel of mercy, stilling Connor’s renewed forward momentum with a gentle hand on his shoulder. Beauty to soothe Superboy’s Savage Beast, Wally’s internal Closed Captioning dubbed the moment. There. See? Another joke. He wasn’t broken. By the time he got back to Dick, his jokes would be working fine, and Dick would have the perfect replies, like always, and they’d both be laughing in no time because he wasn’t broken, and Dick definitely wasn’t broken, and nobody was broken okay?

“Wally,” M’Gann said, stepping closer. Her hand no longer held Superboy in check but hovered, extended in the air between them like she wanted to touch him now, soothe him now, but was afraid to. Her own eyes were wide and anxious. Wally drew back, eyeing the offered appendage like a bladed weapon. Dangerous. A threat.

“Don’t read my mind,” he snapped automatically.

“I’m not,” M’Gann said.

“Then why are you looking at me like that?”

“I’m reading your face.”

“Well stop it. Nobody asked you to.”

Superboy snorted, raging bulls springing back to mind. “That’s it. We’re wasting time here. I’m going to Bludhaven.”

“No! You can’t! You’ll only make things worse. Trust me,” Wally said with a bitter laugh.

“Trust you?” Connor exploded, and even M’Gann stepped out of the way of his suddenly flailing arms. “What’s there to trust? You’re not saying anything! You and Artemis haven’t been here in months, and then you race through here half an hour ago like someone’s being murdered, without even saying a word, and you head off to Bludhaven and the only one there is Dick who’s not answering his comm or his phone and now you’re back here and acting like a fucking robot, Artemis is nowhere to be found, and now you’re running off to Star City and all you can say is trust you?! What the hell is going on, Wally?”

The speedster blinked, feeling like he’d just been run over by a freight train as his usually monosyllabic teammate’s rant reverberated through the cavern housing Mt. Justice’s Zeta tubes.

“Trust Artemis then,” Wally said dully, unable to meet either of his longtime friends’ eyes. He hated the resentment audible even to him in his own voice because what the fuck was he doing resenting his own girlfriend for…what? Being able to be there for their friend? For being better at this than he was? Who would want to be _better_ at dealing with _this_? “She knows what she’s doing. She’s with Dick now, nobody’s hurt, she’s got it handled. I just…I need to go get Black Canary and bring her back and she doesn’t want anyone else getting in the way, that’s all. Okay? I know I’m being weird but Artemis…you can trust her, right? She’s got this.”

“Got what?” Superboy all but roared, as his girlfriend’s gentle hand found its way back to his shoulder, stilling him once more.

“Artemis is with Dick right now?” M’Gann asked, biting her lip. “And she thinks it’s better if no one else comes, except for Black Canary?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Oh.” M’Gann wasn’t biting her lip, she was downright chewing on it. Had everyone adopted new facial ticks since he retired? Should they bring back poker night? “What about Batman?”

“Especially Batman,” Wally said. The memory of Dick’s vehemence leaked through to his own voice now; he saw it in how both his teammates’ eyes widened. They looked at each other then, seemingly guilty. “Why? What’s with that look?”

“It might be a little too late for that,” M’Gann said hesitantly. Connor was doing his concerned expression again. Really milking the mileage outta that one tonight. “When you and Artemis came through here half hour ago and Dick wasn’t answering his comm or his phone, and neither you or Artemis keep your comms on you anymore…we knew something must be wrong, and there wasn’t anything over the League channels, so we…we contacted Robin to see if there was a Bat-related emergency Nightwing had called for your help with. Batman…he’s on his way here now. He told us to wait for him.”

“Fuck,” Wally swore. M’Gann blinked in shock and took another step back. He ran his hands through his hair, his whole body vibrating with tension until he was practically blinking in and out of sight. “I have to go. Whatever you do, don’t let Batman go to Bludhaven right now.”

“Are you insane?” Connor erupted again, but Wally was done listening as he tapped Star City’s destination codes into the Zeta-tube’s keypad. “Batman is on his way here because we told him there was some kind of emergency with his son and you want us to what? Tell him when he gets here oh hey, yup, something’s definitely wrong with Dick but Wally told us to tell you not to go to him with zero other explanation, so you should definitely listen to Wally? Like that’s going to work?”

“Then sit on him or something, Connor, I don’t fucking know,” Wally yelled. The Zeta tube whirred to life, golden light sparking at its edges. Superboy stared at him.

“Sit on- Have you lost your mind?”

“Yes,” Wally said plainly. Because it was true, or he wanted it to be true, and if you wanted something bad enough you could make it true through sheer force of will and hey maybe that was literally the textbook definition of denial, but billions of practitioners over the course of human history can’t all be wrong, right? Nope, Denial City, here he comes.

Connor and M’Gann gaped at him, faces awash with confusion and worry beneath the back-lighting of the Zeta- beam’s golden glow. Wally turned and raced through the beam and down its yellow brick road, off to seek the Wizard on the other side. Maybe he’d have a brain Wally could use to fix this, or the courage for him to face Dick, or even a heart to replace the one that felt like it’d been ripped out of his chest and left behind in a shitty one bedroom Bludhaven apartment.

Really, he’d take any of the above.

 

* * *

 

 

For years to come, Dinah would remember being grateful for the knock on the door that night. The reminder would never fail to make her a little sick to her stomach, send her spiraling down a loop of what-if’s and might-have-been’s; things they all could have done differently, other choices they all could have made. In the end, she’d always conclude that things had happened the way they happened, and that’s all there was to it. Things could have gone better. Things could have gone worse. They didn’t. Reality was what it was regardless of hindsight, and regrets were just specters cursed to haunt the guilt-ridden as much as the guilty.

But hypotheticals aside, things began and ended all with that simple knock on the door. Events had been set in motion long before it came and would have continued along their path even had it not. But for her and her part in it all, it all came back to that. She could stand by her later actions, justify her choices. But fair to herself or not, she could never escape the awareness that heedless of what lay on the other side, her first reaction to the knock that heralded so many changes and so much pain was an oblivious: “Thank God.”

At the time, all she knew was it was a reprieve from the tension filling her own apartment like a poisonous smog. Ollie and Roy glaring daggers at each other from opposite ends of the living room - the perfect snapshot of their entire relationship, it so often felt like. Seconds from killing each other. Seconds from her killing them. The air still trembling from the echoes of words fired like arrows, always at themselves more than each other because Roy’s eternal quest to find his ‘original’ was born from self-loathing as much as unnecessary penance - and who had he learned the Art of Self-Loathing from if not from the grandmaster Oliver Queen himself?

So what were they even fighting about in the first place? She had no idea. They had no idea. Just lots of testosterone, too much time on their hands, and endless ammunition.

The unexpected knock bought a temporary truce. Her two hard-headed combatants both retreated to their corners and switched their shouting out for sullen glowering while she answered the door. The reveal of supposedly retired Wally West on the other side, red-faced and breathless in ways a speedster should never be, that bought a full ceasefire as her boys hit pause for more pressing concerns. They remembered their priorities when it counted. That was probably why she hadn’t actually killed either of them yet.

Probably.

For her part, Dinah’s hand flew to the earbud she’d been wearing all night, just in case a League emergency arose. Static hissed as she tested it; it seemed to be working fine, but she couldn’t fathom why Wally West would show up in a clear state of emergency without a message going out on the comms first. Roy and Ollie had him sandwiched between them after they both surged past Dinah and pulled him through the door and to the couch, voices rising and chattering at each other as they checked him over in search of injuries to explain his frazzled state. Somewhere between sinking down into the couch cushions and Roy’s hands starting to lift the speedster’s shirt to probe for damage beneath it, Wally found his breath and started slapping the two archers’ hands away.

“I’m fine, stop that. I’m not hurt.”

“Then what the hell, West?” Roy yelled. He jumped to his feet and crossed his arms, face as red as his hair. Ollie palmed his face. Dinah sighed. Zero to sixty it’d be, then. “It’s the middle of the night, you’re supposed to be off playing Average Joe at Stanford, and you look like shit. Excuse us for assuming the worst.”

Wally laughed at that. It was more of a bark than anything else, sharp-edged and abrasive and utterly lacking in humor, and the sound of it sent Dinah’s internal blood temperature plummeting. It was like nothing she’d ever heard before coming from the usually good-natured laughaholic. Roy visibly rocked back on his heels, and even Ollie looked disturbed.

“Like that’s the worst that could happen. Like you could even see the worst if it happened.”

The three of them exchanged looks, but the younger man seemed oblivious. He stared at his hands like they held the answer to some unfathomable mystery.

“What are you doing here then, Kid Flash?”

“I’m not Kid Flash anymore,” Wally said flatly. “I’m not a hero. And this isn’t…this isn’t a Flash thing. Or a League thing. It’s not…it’s not like that.”

“Okay,” Roy dragged out. “Then what kind of thing is it?”

“Where’s Artemis?” Ollie cut in then, and Dinah’s stomach turned. “Why isn’t she with you? Is she alright?”

“She’s fine,” Wally said. He still hadn’t looked up from his hands. “She’s with Dick.”

“Wally, I need you to talk to us,” Dinah said softly, while the other two exchanged baffled looks. “Why is Artemis with Dick? Did he send you here? Something is clearly wrong, and if you’re fine, and Artemis is fine, is it Dick? Is something wrong with him?”

“Yes.”

One syllable. How could one syllable carry so much dread? Dinah squeezed her eyes shut.

“Okay. Okay,” she said. “What can we do? Why did you come to us, Wally, there must have been a reason. What’s wrong with Dick, is he hurt? Is he at the Watchtower, a hospital?”

“No. No, its not…he’s fine. Umm. Physically I mean. He’s at his apartment in Bludhaven with Artemis. She sent me to get Canary.”

“Artemis sent you to get me, specifically?” Dinah clarified. Her thoughts raced alongside her heartbeat as she tried to intuit, tried to get ahead of the problem, leap past the dribbles of information Wally was letting out without getting frustrated at his pace. She had the training for this, knew how to coax it out of him, treat him like a witness. That didn’t mean it came easily, not when every instinct she had was translating his body language and his reticence into a million and one reasons to panic. “Walk me through it, Wally. What’s the situation?”

He laughed again, that sharp, bitter bark. “That’s what she said to him. You sound just like her. God. And I sound like him, don’t I? I probably sound just like he did now and its not…nothing even happened to me. How messed up is that?”

“What happened to Dick?” Roy said before Dinah could cut him off. The young archer never wore his concern for his friends well, and his anxiety lent his tone an urgency and bite that had Wally flinching. “Wally, what happened to Dick?”

“Roy!” She snapped, and he shut his jaw with a clack and turned away, fuming. Wally’s head was in his hands now and his shoulders were shaking. But not with sobs, it turned out.

“And now you sound like me,” he gasped out, and he might be laughing but the desperate eyes he raised to them were red with tear tracks. “It’s like it’s all happening just like it did there only now Dinah’s Artemis and Roy’s me and I’m Dick but I’m fine, Dick’s the one you should be worried about, nothing happened to me. God, this is so fucked up. I don’t know how to do this.”

“Wally, breathe,” Dinah said sternly. She knelt in front of him, held his cheeks between her palms and cradled his head gently, as though she might break him. Kept his head in place when he tried to look away, forcing his eyes to find hers instead, as she tried to ground him with the surety in her gaze, give him a foundation to build upon. “Wally, Artemis sent you for me specifically, and she must have had a reason. I need you to talk to me, I need to know what’s happened and how I can help.”

“I can’t,” he said. His breath hitched and his green eyes had never been wider, never more expressive than staring at her plaintively now. “I don’t know how to say it, I - I can’t…I don’t know if he’d want me to, and I already fucked up and what if I make things worse? Can’t you just come with me?”

“Of course I’m coming with you,” Dinah said with a patience she didn’t feel. Her mind was still busy racing with possibilities, each worse than the last. She swallowed. “That was never in question. But if Dick’s not…alright, and Artemis is hoping I can help, I can be more effective if I’m not going in blind. You understand, right? Anything you can tell me right now can only help, not hurt. If I’m going anyway, then Dick’s not going to mind if you told me. He knows I’m coming, right?”

Wally nodded. “Yeah. Artemis asked if I could come get you. He said. He said it was okay, but just you.”

“See? There you go. He’ll understand. Now let’s try this again, walk me through it. What can you tell me about how you ended up here?”

“Dick called me umm…I don’t know. Half an hour ago? He said he needed me, that he was at his apartment, and he…he sounded messed up. Like he’d been crying. I’d never heard him like that before, you know? Not even when Jason died,” Wally recited softly, a bizarrely awe-tinged, horror stricken bent to how he recalled his best friend’s behavior.

Unfortunately, Dinah understood all too well, and a better - albeit bleak - picture was starting to form, one that explained Wally’s state of mind a bit better. The speedster might be older than his friend by a few years, and an experienced hero in his own right. But their experiences were very different and they were very different kinds of heroes. Dick Grayson was Gotham through and through, and the city that had created both Batman and Robin was a cruel mistress who left its children with very little illusions. He might cope differently than his adopted father and mentor, display emotion more often, laugh more visibly - but the bedrock at his core was no less granite than what lay beneath the Batman’s cape and cowl.

She remembered watching them both at Jason’s funeral, the one grieving for his son, the other for his brother. Both looking like they could very well have been carved from the same rock that formed his tombstone. Unwilling to show even the slightest crack in front of the other assembled heroes, even in their time of mourning, because a truth many of them acknowledged but none were willing to face was that they all tended to lean more than they should on the bedrock of the Bats. Both her generation and Wally’s clung a little too fiercely to their larger than life myth, their seeming invincibility amid actual invincibles. Dinah had stood there watching them stand over Jason’s grave, teeming with emotions they wouldn’t show but she knew they felt because she knew _them_ , and she’d cried for them the tears they refused to shed for him, feeling an impostor, a fake all the while. Because how much of that, she’d wondered then - how much of their refusal to bend, to break, to crack, how much was Bruce and his issues and Dick being his father’s son…and how much was the mission? The men, the myth, the legend of the Bat and his brood?

How much do we share the blame for this, Dinah had thought: then as they stood still and silent over the grave of the boy they’d both loved so fiercely; later as they self-destructed in their own separate, solitary ways, as the rest of them stood vigil yet pretended not to see, because Bat business was Bat business and beyond mere mortals like them; now as she sat and watched the man who’d been Kid Flash fall apart, lost and shaken because he’d been witness to a Bat breaking.

“So we went, Artemis and me, we took the zeta tubes to Bludhaven and to his apartment,” Wally continued. Dinah shook herself out of her reverie. She saw it reflected in both Ollie and Roy’s faces. Of all the League and all the Team, the two archers and Artemis were most like the Batfamily in both their drive and their limitations. But that didn’t make them any more immune to the presence the Bats cultivated like armor, just a little more capable of seeing it for what it was.

“But when we got there, we umm. We found.” Wally hesitated, stalled out. Dinah squeezed his hands in encouragement. He blurted it out then, the words vomiting forth in a rush like he couldn’t get rid of them quickly enough. “There was a baby there, and he said it was his and…and…his and Tarantula. You remember her, right? The vigilante who tried to get him to teach her and then she sold him out to Blockbuster and then killed Blockbuster and he turned her over to the cops?”

The cold in her veins crystallized into frost.

“Yes,” Dinah said, because she remembered alright. The woman had done enough damage with just her betrayal of Dick and her murder of Blockbuster, but if - a baby, god, Dick was barely eighteen - if this was headed where she thought it was headed Dick had hid so much more than she’d ever suspected and of course her attempts at counseling had failed, had barely scratched the surface, had been aimed in the wrong fucking direction entirely _goddammit_. She forced herself to keep her eyes open, to not squeeze them shut again, to not linger on the baby and her heart hammered painfully because she wanted Wally to stop talking, did not want this confirmed, wanted to protect that young, laughing Robin from this one hurt too many, god, how had she not seen, her entire job was to see these things, fucking Bat training -

“And I couldn’t keep my dumb mouth shut,” Wally said with self-loathing enough to make master craftsmen Roy and Ollie both flinch back. “I didn’t mean it but I didn’t think, and I was so busy wondering why the hell Dick would sleep with that nutjob when I know better, he’s not like that, I know people always think he is because he flirts a lot and you know how Bruce is and people just assume but he’s not and I’m supposed to be his best friend but Artemis saw it. She figured it out right away and when I finally figured out what they were talking about I didn’t mean to, it just came out, all I could think was why didn’t he tell me or someone and it just came out and you should’ve seen his face. It was like I hit him, and god - ”

“Wally!” She had to shake him to get him to stop, to put a dam in the river of recriminations spilling out of him but it gave her something to do at least, something to focus on. Dinah didn’t look up, didn’t want to her shock mirrored on Roy or Ollie’s faces because. God. Why? Why this? Why Dick? She knew better than anyone those questions were pointless, irrelevant, useless. Yet they persisted.

All the years of training they’d given the younger generation of heroes, but who among them had ever prepared them for this? To face this, to see it faced by their friend, their teammate? They were trained to fight alien invaders, to take down gods, to avert natural disasters. They’d all spent so much time worrying about how the kids would fare in colorful costumed battles with supervillains across city rooftops. Preparing them for the possibilities of brainwashing and mind control, violations of the mind. Taught them how to cope with losses, the guilt of being unable to save an innocent, of violations of the spirit. Given them the tools and techniques to escape a hundred forms of imprisonment, walked them through contingencies in the advent of find themselves alone without backup, or injured or behind enemy lines.

Yet it had never occurred to them to prepare these children for the possibility of such a base violation, of this kind of theft, this form of assault. Or was that really true? Had it really never occurred to any of them, or had they just buried the possibility, unwilling to face it? What, god, had they somehow convinced themselves to trust in the villains and criminals they fought to hold to some kind of higher standard, just assumed they’d never stoop to such a level with children because yes, Dick might be eighteen now but that didn’t mean he wasn’t still a child, definitely didn’t mean it nine months ago. Would it have made a difference? If they’d prepared them for this? However that looked because how did you prepare someone for this, was that why they’d never bothered, never tried? Was it that they knew there was no preparing for this and it was what, better to just leave the possibility unvoiced? Like if they didn’t tempt fate, fate wouldn’t come knocking?

Because they knew better, she knew better, hell, Bruce knew better. This had always been inevitable, with someone, somewhere down the line, it was about reality, not fate. It had always been when, not if. And who. When and who.

Those had been the only variables ever in question in this particular equation. Was it really a surprise that the answers to it were ‘Dick Grayson’, and ‘far too young?’ And now it had happened. And nothing and none of them would ever be the same, least of all Dick, and not to mention with a child in the mix. And…shit.

“Wally, why was the baby with Dick?” Dinah asked, his head coming back up sharply at her urgency. “Tarantula’s still in prison, right? How did Dick come to have the baby?”

“He said she called him. As Nightwing,” Wally shrugged, his voice flat and lifeless. “That the warden at the prison pulled strings to let him take the baby because Tarantula told everyone it was his kid and it wouldn’t be safe in the system once word got out whose kid it was.”

Dammit.

“Okay, that’s not good,” Ollie frowned.

“Goddammit, West, way to bury the lead,” Roy barked at the same time.

“Roy!” Dinah snapped again, as Wally shrank back into the couch. The younger archer just glared, unrepentant.

“You know damn well what I mean, Dinah. Forget everything else for just a second. Don’t even think about whether or not people ever figure out the how of that whackjob Tarantula having a baby with Nightwing. If word is out and people know that Nightwing has a baby, that criminals are talking about him walking out of prison with an itty bitty defenseless baby and its _his_ …I’m sorry, do I really need to break down what a colossal fucking recipe for disaster that is? The Bats’ secret IDs might be the best kept secret in the hero community but Nightwing being the first Robin and the Batman’s son or heir or whatever is pretty much the worst kept one. How long before people start thinking the newborn infant grandchild of the goddamn Batman is the perfect target or leverage or bait or all of the a-fucking-bove?”

“Roy,” Dinah tried to pacify him. He barreled on, waving his arms wildly.

“And let’s not forget that oh yeah, the Bats’ secret IDs? Not actually the best kept secret after all because in case anyone else has forgotten, the Light knows who all of us are. Ra’s, Queen Bee, Lex Luthor, they all know perfectly fucking well who Batman and Nightwing really are, and the only reason they don’t do anything with that info is because they haven’t decided how best to play those cards yet. And how long do you think that’s gonna last now? Before someone out there gives them enough of an incentive to spill the beans on where baby Nightwing rests his little head at night while Dad and Grandpa are out swinging from rooftops?”

“We get it!” Dinah yelled. There was enough of her Canary Cry seeping into the shout that he jolted, eyes wide. She rose to her feet, moderated her tone. “You’re right. This is a problem. Wally and I are going to help Artemis with Dick. In the meanwhile, why don’t you find out where Tarantula is locked up and go pay her a visit. Talk to the warden, see how widespread the talk is, how much is just rumor and how much people believe. Find out how many people actually know Nightwing came and left with a baby. If there’s any chance we can still contain this.”

“Fine,” Roy said curtly. She let him have his attitude. It wasn’t aimed at her. Or at Wally either for that matter.

“Ollie, go with him. Make sure he doesn’t put an arrow in Tarantula while he’s there.”

“No promises,” her boyfriend growled. Dinah sighed. She appreciated the sentiment, hell she even approved. But why for the love of god couldn’t either of them use the brains she knew perfectly well they were blessed with and think in addition to being pissed instead of just settling for the latter?

“Yes, promises. We’ll have enough on our plate trying to keep the baby’s very existence from leaking out. But if it does, do either of you really think Nightwing needs people speculating too much about how he happened to have a baby with a woman he imprisoned? Let alone what about that pissed other heroes off enough they put an arrow in her on top of her being in prison?”

Both her boys paled at that, but she took no satisfaction from it, nor did she have time to dwell on it as Wally rocketed off the couch with a panicked shout.

“We need to go now,” he said urgently. His hands ran through his hair, yanking at clumps. Classic self-punishment, Dinah noted, and made a point to watch for signs of escalation from the speedster. Because it wasn’t as though there was enough to worry about already. “Shit, I can’t believe I forgot. I shouldn’t have taken this long. We gotta go before Batman gets to Bludhaven. He heard something was wrong with Dick and he told Connor and M’Gann he was coming, but Dick doesn’t want him there, he said he didn’t, Canary we have to go now!”

She slammed her eyes closed just for a minute, for thirty seconds, no, just for ten. That’s all she needed. Ten seconds of calm, to center herself, to find her strength. Okay.

“Go,” Ollie said, when she snapped her eyes open again. He nodded towards the door. “Get out of here, maybe there’s still a chance to head off Bats. Roy and I will follow, make sure anyone else who’s heard something’s up all stay away, and then we’ll head to the penitentiary. We’ll call when we’ve got something to report.”

That was all the permission Wally needed, and within seconds she was clutched close to his side and they were out the door as he sped through Star City. Not her favorite way to travel, even when it was Barry doing the speeding - and he still had a couple inches and a good twenty pounds of frame compared to his nephew’s leaner build - but she wasn’t looking to complain just now. They made it to the zeta tube and through to Mt. Justice in record time, and with not a moment to spare.

Two tubes down from where they emerged, Batman was drawn up to his full, considerable height as he stared down Superboy, who stood resolutely in his way. Said resolution collapsed into fervent relief the second the young Kryptonian saw the cavalry had arrived and diverted Batman’s attention their way, but Dinah was impressed nonetheless. Even acting as a speed bump to Batman-on-a-mission was quite the feat. And the infamous Dark Knight was most certainly on a mission now.

“Canary,” he said, as brusque as ever, though at least he acknowledged her with a nod. “I assumed it was you Kid Flash went to retrieve from Star City. Has he told you what the situation is in Bludhaven?”

Dammit Bruce, Dinah thought wearily. Really? The situation in Bludhaven, as opposed to the situation with Dick? Can you really not bring yourself to admit you’re worried about him even when the only people around are friends and teammates who are just as worried?

Again she asked herself, did we do this? Or is this deflection just hard-wired into you and we made it worse?

“He has,” she said evenly. He swept past Superboy as the latter now stumbled out of his path, casting an entreating glance her way.

“Good. You can fill me in on the way.”

“No, Bruce. You need to stay here.”

Silence engulfed the cave like a blanket thrown over a fire to smother the flames. Superboy, Miss Martian and Kid Flash all had eyes the size of dinner plates as they silently drew back, leaving nothing but empty space between Dinah’s firm stance and the turned back of the Batman a few feet away. It was only the five of them in the room, and his identity wasn’t a secret to any of them, hadn’t been for years. But wielding it like that, when he was in the cowl, it simply wasn’t done.

He pivoted with slow menace, a clear threat impossible to ignore even as she tried not to take it personally. It was simply who he was. Railing at him for it, while justified, was about as productive as yelling at the storm for throwing lightning. Besides, she knew it was only born of the concern he refused to show, and he had every reason to be concerned.

God, he had so much more reason to be concerned than he knew.

“Excuse me?” He said at last, voice as cool and imposing as a glacier. She was no shrinking violet herself, though.

“Wally and I are going to Bludhaven. You’re staying here.”

“That’s not your call to make, Canary,” he said, a low, dangerous edge to his voice.

“No, its not. But it’s not yours either. It’s Nightwing’s, and he’s expressed that he’s not ready to see you at the moment.”

That made him hesitate. But whether because he saw the validity of it or simply a painful reminder of the distance between them since Jason’s death, she couldn’t say. His cowl made him damnably hard to read, but then, well, that was kind of the point of it, she supposed.

“My son is not always the best judge of when he needs my assistance,” Bruce said at last.

“You’re not wrong,” Dinah admitted. “Of course, in my professional opinion, it’s been proven equally true that you’re not always the best judge of when he needs it either. Do you trust me, Bruce? No. Wait. Let me rephrase. Do you trust my skills and expertise as a counselor?”  
  
He studied her. “You know I do. I would not have recommended you act in that capacity for the Team otherwise.”

She nodded. “Then trust me now. All I know of the situation is Wally’s assessment, which backs up my belief that it should be up to Dick whether he sees you now or not. As far as I know, he suffers from no immediate physical danger or harm that you can help him with. Let me make my own assessment. If I agree that Dick needs your assistance whether he wants it or not, I’ll call you in immediately. If not, its important that you respect his wishes right now, as much as that might chafe you. And believe me Bruce, I understand what I’m asking isn’t easy.”

“You can’t possibly understand,” he growled. She faltered, reading the frustration in his stance, in his indecision. In the fact that she could see those things - things that were supposed to be anathema to the ever stoic Batman - in him at all.

“You’re right,” Dinah conceded. “But I understand enough that I wouldn’t stand between you and him unless I firmly believed that acting too rashly here risks doing more harm than good. And I firmly believe that.”

He absorbed that for a moment. Then: “You’re hardly lessening my concerns, Canary.”

“I’m not trying to,” she said bluntly. “Your concerns are valid. But this isn’t about you.”

He nodded. And then all at once he’d crossed the space in between them and loomed large and intimidating in front of her. Her pulse spiked sharply before she realized he was only looking to speak more privately.

“I will do as you ask, if you can tell me one thing,” he said, dropping his voice until it was for her ears alone. Superboy could probably hear, but Superboy also appeared to be very preoccupied trying his best not to overhear.

She nodded, and was treated to the bizarre, almost terrifying sight of the Batman trying to prepare himself.

“Did he attempt to harm himself?”

Shock hit Dinah like a punch to the gut, knocking the wind and the words out of her. She shook her head frantically instead.

“No,” she said when she could. “I promise you, Bruce. He didn’t, and I don’t have any reason to suspect he might. Nor has he done anything to harm anyone else, or anything that you wouldn’t condone. I swear.”

Her turn to hesitate now.

“I don’t want to speak for him, but I can hazard a guess as to why he doesn’t want your help at the moment,” she said carefully. “And I don’t think it’s because he’s angry with you or because his…concerns are accurate or something you’d agree with, but I think he needs a chance to realize that for himself first. But I swear, it’s not what you were thinking, and it’s nothing that he did.”

He stared at her as intently as though he possessed Clark’s X-Ray vision and could gauge her sincerity somehow from her bones. He flicked his eyes away then, gazing off at the far wall.

“But something has happened.”

A statement, not a question. She nodded anyway. Wet her lips.

“Yes. I’m sorry, Bruce. But yes.”

She could practically see the gears turning in his brilliant brain as he surveyed every word she’d said for another angle, another clue. Hunting for dots to connect, conclusions to draw. A part of her hoped he’d put it together on his own. That she wouldn’t have to be the one to tell him, or worse, that Dick wouldn’t have to be the one to tell him. A part of her hoped that even he, with all he’d seen - so much more than any of the rest of them, she’s always suspected - that even he couldn’t imagine the right possibility, this particular possibility all on his own.

No parent should ever have to imagine that for their child. Let alone one who’d buried another son barely a year and a half ago.

She tried not to stare at his gloves, at his fingers curled loosely in on themselves, the tips twitching ever so slightly, trembling, as though he had to fight to keep from clenching his fists. His jaw shifted minutely where it stuck out beneath his cowl.

“I will wait to hear from you,” he said. “Take care of my son, Dinah.”

It was an order, terse and imperious, tossed over his shoulder as he stalked out of the cave. And yet hidden, indefinable, there was a current running beneath it, an electrified tension that rendered those words the most heartfelt plea she’d ever heard him make.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since I got pretty ominous in this chapter (and was a terrible person for abandoning this for over a year) I want to clarify some things in the interest of full disclosure. This fic is mapped out to be twenty chapters long with the ending already written, and two sequels (though the middle fic is not intended to be that long). There is no character death in this fic, but neither is there a happy ending. More...bittersweet. There is a definite beginning, middle and end to this fic with the plot building somewhere specifically, but the 'full' resolution to this story and all its themes will not be in this fic, but in what comes after. It just felt more honest to do it that way, as long as readers are prepared to not get everything wrapped up in this fic. With the kinds of things being dealt with in this story....there is no neat and clean resolution. 
> 
> This story is about Dick's reactions and approach to dealing with everything that has led him to this point (not just Tarantula, but also Jason's death and his conflict with Bruce)....but seeing as how he's an incredibly goal-oriented individual who likes his plans and having solutions to things....its as much about how trying to 'fix' yourself in the short term, after a great trauma, trying to plan or plot or force yourself into the recovery you want for yourself or your problems.....it can only take you so far. Band-aids applied over surgical wounds. True recovery and healing takes a long ass time, and is the kind of resolution you'll find more of in the sequels, rather than this initial story.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning all over this chapter for frank discussion of rape.

They could hear the crying from all the way down the hall. Loud, strident wails piercing the air even as they emerged from the building’s stairwell. Dinah hesitated, Wally still moving fast and already ten feet past her before he realized she wasn’t keeping up. He turned back with clear impatience.

In the rush to get over here, thoughts busy with the revelations about Dick and running through scenarios on how best to break through to the stubborn teen, she’d neglected one crucial detail in all of this. Not a detail. A baby. A person. Who wasn’t just a problem to be fixed, a situation to be contained, but a living, breathing entity in its own right. As much a victim of this as Dick was. A second victim. Was it a boy or a girl? She couldn’t remember if Wally had even said.

She didn’t have time to wonder though, or to stew in self doubts. Already unease was creeping back across Wally’s face with each passing second Dinah delayed - each one of them infinitely longer in his perceptions, she was sure. She shook herself and squared her shoulders, marching past him and letting them both into Dick’s apartment with the key Wally held out when his hand shook too much to find the lock.

Artemis practically flew around as she pivoted to face them upon entrance, and Dinah's eyes flew in turn to the bundle of swaddled up infant she held in her arms. The fog of vagueness that had lingered since Wally stumbled into her apartment was dispelled with a snap at the sight. No more blaming this all on some kind of fugue state or hallucinogenic spores. Damn. She'd really kind of been hoping for a last minute Poison Ivy reveal. Seconds later her gaze skipped down to the mass huddled on the floor against the wall. Nightwing in costume, sans mask, knees drawn up, elbows atop them, head in his hands and fingers white with strain as they dug into his temples in tempo to the baby's tearful wails.

"He started crying like ten minutes ago and I can't get him to stop," Artemis babbled. Dinah crossed the room in swift but steady strides and reached out to maneuver the infant from the younger woman's arms to hers without waiting. "I tried everything I can think of but I'm not good with babies, I didn't know what...."

"Shh," Dinah silenced her. Gentled her tone when Artemis blinked, a wet sheen in her eyes. Wally might have oversold the whole 'Artemis knows what she's doing thing', she reflected. Or else Artemis oversold it to him. It shouldn't be the revelation it is. None of them knew what they were doing here, none of them could. "It's alright, Artemis, you did fine. I've got him, he's going to be fine."

And a him it was, she realized, looking down for the first time at the baby in her arms. She'd half meant Dick, that she had Nightwing, that she'd take it from here with him rather than the baby, but her gut assumption proved true as she stared down at the squalling child. Congratulations, she thought bitterly. It's a boy. There should be balloons and cake and celebrating. Birth is a time of new beginnings. Of potential. No infant's entrance into this world should be this shrouded in hurt and pain. Especially no child of a boy as laughing and happy as the Robin she remembered meeting so long ago (not long ago enough). You've already got your father's record beat, haven't you, little one? He at least made it to eight before his trials began, but you. Where was your chance in all of this?

"You did fine," was all Dinah said though, voice soft for the baby's benefit even as she jiggled him in her arms, emanating reassurance and calm for all around. If only her Canary Cry came with a lullaby setting. "Better than fine. Now I need you to take Wally and go find someplace that's open right now. The baby's going to need some things. Diapers, clothes, see if you can find a temporary easily assembled crib, one of those plastic things until we can find something better."

"Are you sure?" Artemis hesitated, torn between not wanting to abandon her friend in his time of need and not wanting to crack under the stress of more than she could bear. Dinah could sympathize. She just couldn't afford to empathize, because she at least, needed to be able to bear this. Someone did. Why her? She sighed. Why not her? Fuck this life.

"I'm positive," she assured the younger woman, barely out of her teens herself. She looked over to Wally, busy ping-ponging between the two of them and Dick still huddled on the floor, yet to acknowledge either of them. "Go, now. I'm not sure how much later stores around here will be open."

"Superspeed," Wally said. The unconvincing grin he mustered looked downright macabre on his face. "Even if everywhere's closed around here, we'll hit up the West Coast. We'll find what we need."

"I'm sure you will." Especially since all she really needed was them gone. There really was no tactful way to put that without raising their defenses however. The last thing Dick needed right now was a 'who can help him more' competition meant to reassure its participants more than him.

They nodded again, two broken bobble heads on box springs, and left with a haste that at least could be faked on having a purpose rather than just an urgent need to be elsewhere. This was going to leave its mark on more than just Dick and the child - Dick's child, she forced herself to contextualize. But at least now she could focus on the one in most need of her help, not to mention the one least likely to accept it. And if she couldn't help him, she wouldn't be able to help any of them, because while it may have come as a surprise years ago when they all realized it was a son of the brooding Batman who'd become the lynchpin that held the superhero community connected, it was a truth they'd all since accepted.

They stayed as they were for awhile, him on the floor, her with his screaming child rocked gently in her arm. A solemn tableau painted in hues of moonlight and indigo shadows. Two Birds and a Baby she named the picture in her mind, but no, that wasn't quite right. She didn't belong in this scene, just a visitor passing through. It was the other two here who had to live in it, live with the consequences of one wrong move here, one misstep, one failed message catalyzing further harm rather than help. She soothed the baby, quieted him gradually. If there was a clue in there, an insight born of his heredity she could link back to a tonic to ease his father's pains, she couldn't find it.

In the end, it was Dick who finally broke the newly fallen quiet.

"Does Batman know yet?"

Batman, not Bruce. Dinah shook her head. They're one and the same, she wanted to remind him, wanted to shake him, wanted to scream in Bruce's face every time she'd watch him insist on the distinction over the past ten years.

"He's waiting back at Mt. Justice," she said. "But no, he doesn't know yet. He knows something is wrong, but I convinced him to let me come alone and speak with you first."

Dick snorted. "At least he actually listens to you."

"I think this makes the third time in the fifteen years I've known him," Dinah said wryly. "Don't go thinking I'm special. He only listened because I convinced him barreling in here would only make things worse. And the last thing your father has ever wanted to do is make things worse for you. He manages it sometimes anyway, but it's never his intent."

Not that intent matters, or is any kind of excuse for the harm or damage one actually causes, Dinah reflected. And normally it wasn't a line of thinking she'd ever open a door to at all, but with the past two years worth of tension between Dick and his father still a major source of the young man's turmoil, she figured it was worth it to see if Dick would seize the opportunity to defend Bruce. Lord knows Dick could hold a grudge against his father like no one's business, but anyone else trying it in his presence was usually a nonstarter.

To her disappointment - but not her surprise - Dick ignored the bait and instead just grunted. He stared at the floor, face alternately pale and purple under the neon glow that washed through the window via a strip club's signage across the street.

"I wouldn't have broken, you know," Dick said, never looking up. His lips twisted beneath the words, as if they tasted like something sour. "If he came too. I didn't...I don't want him here, not now, or yet, I mean. But it's not like. It wouldn't have broken me or whatever you're thinking. That's all I mean."

"I didn't say that it would, Dick," Dinah said carefully. But not so carefully as to lay credence to the idea she thought he was fragile. Not an easy line to traverse. Where's a tightrope walker when you need one? Oh, right. Crumpled up on the floor of his unlit apartment, afraid to even look at his own baby. Things were off to a promising start. "It's not either or. You're not broken just because you're not alright and you're not alright just because you're not broken. There's room for space in between."

She sighed and cast around the cramped apartment, dragging a chair from the kitchen table to settle down in front of him. The room was such a far cry from the opulence of Wayne Manor. She knew Dick had never been one to buy into the trappings of his father's wealthy lifestyle. She and Ollie frequently attended the same functions as the Waynes, and she'd smothered many a giggle at Dick and Jason's antics as the two reveled in shocking the Gotham elite with loud and pointed reminders of their impoverished 'low class' backgrounds. Still, looking around, she couldn't help but wondering how much of Dick's apartment and its placement was purely a result of not caring about things like wealth and status, and how much of it was a deliberate rejection of those things, of Bruce? Did it even matter? Or was she just stalling?

"You know, I've never really liked when people use that word," she mused. The baby in her arms stirred restlessly, his nose wrinkling. God. As a general rule, she preferred waiting until children were teenagers before interacting with them. She wasn't big on babies, usually - most people who cooed over their shrunken little faces and called them the most beautiful things they'd ever seen were just lying, in her opinion. But this one was a charmer. Or maybe he wasn't, and she was just already hopelessly attached because Reasons. Crap. Of all the times for a maternal bone to materialize.

"Broken. What does that even mean, really? It's just a description of a physical state, but people use it like a judgment. As though it describes what someone is, instead of simply what state they're in at a particular moment. You can break something and then put it back together so you can never tell the difference, so what does it mean that it was broken? Why does it matter?"

Dick shifted for the first time since she'd entered the apartment. She might not be Batman caliber, but her own reflexes were nothing to sneeze at. Still, the suddenness of his movements were unexpected enough to catch her offguard as he reached over to the side and snatched up one of the escrima sticks he carried as part of his Nightwing ensemble. A slim but sturdy shaft of polished black wood about a foot long in length, it made a hell of a crack when he held it in both hands and brought it down over one knee, hard and fast enough to snap it in two. He tossed the two broken pieces onto the hardwood floor. One rolled over to rest against her foot.

"Can't fix that with crazy glue."

Dinah smoothed her features into careful non-reaction as she bent and reached down to pick up the broken stick, still cradling the infant in one arm as she rolled the shattered weapon in her other palm.

"No, I suppose not. But I bet you I could find a hundred other uses for this piece right here. Plenty of other things you could do with it, or things you could build with it. Use it as the foundation to make something else entirely, or even just carve it, turn it into a work of art, something beautiful. And whatever you end up with, could you describe it as broken? Yes, it wouldn't be your escrima stick anymore, doesn't do the same thing, have the same purpose, maybe what it was is broken. But what it is? What you make of it? Would that be broken?"

Dick jutted his jaw out, mulish, stubborn. A mirror of the expression she'd last glimpsed under Batman's cowl, not even an hour ago. They couldn't be more alike if they were blood. "I know what you're doing," he said.

"What's that?"

"Exactly what I should have known you'd do before I told Artemis she could send Wally to get you. Knew it was a mistake the second he left. I don't need a shrink right now, Canary."

She shrugged. "Good, because I'm done trying to be your therapist. I realized what a waste it was, on my way over here. I never caught a whiff of this brewing under your surface this past year, so obviously our sessions have just been a waste of both our time. I forgot that arrogant smart people make the worst patients."

That was enough to jolt a noticeable reaction out of him. Finally. It was a calculated gamble, one she already regretted as a swift flicker of hurt winged across his face, half-glimpsed and vanished as quickly as it came. It was a little harder for him to banish his gaping mouth. "Yeah, not your usual session starter," he agreed, in only the barest facsimile of his usual clever humor. But it was a start. "So I'm arrogant, now?"

"You always have been," Dinah said gently, trying to soften the blow of her harsh words. She quirked her lips in a half smile. "Just like your father. Difference is, you actually bother with social interaction and you're charming, so you can get away with it where he can't. And Dick...I'm not saying it as an insult. Or that it's a bad thing. I think you and Bruce are arrogant in certain ways, yes. I think you _have_ to be. To do what you both do."

"You're both human, no superpowers, no magic, not even advanced technology giving you an edge. And yet you not only hold your own amidst heroes who have all those advantages and more, you take charge. You lead. You inspire. Mere confidence isn't enough to allow you to do that. You need something that goes beyond that, something that can only be called arrogance, because it's such a bone deep certainty that you can do all the things you profess you can do, that you are the right people to fight the battles you fight, that it's above questioning. There are a million and one reasons you both shouldn't be able to do the things you both do, and if there was even a second you doubted that you could, you probably wouldn't be able to. When you leap off ten story buildings with just a grapple line and your acrobatics to bring you safely to the ground, it's because you believe, no, you know, that you can defy gravity. Even though for seven billion other humans, gravity can't be defied. Dick, I'm an Olympic level gymnast. You don't see me leaping off ten story buildings if I can help it because I know I'm good, yes, but that doesn't mean I know in a battle of me vs gravity, I'm always going to win. You do. You know that. You believe that. And that is arrogance, yes. But it also happens to be justified, in your case."

He mulled that over, not looking thrilled, but at least looking engaged now, and she breathed a bit easier. Good. Engaged she could work with. It was a start. "Okay. Fine. So what about that makes me a terrible patient?"

"I never said terrible," she protested lightly. "I said the worst."

He glared.

She relented. "It's like Superman's invulnerability. Most of the time, that's exactly what he needs to keep him safe. It's all he needs. But in some specific, rare instances, even if it's only 1% of the time, the very thing that makes him so hard to hurt, makes him hard to help. All it takes is that one bullet that can pierce his skin, either because it's Kryptonite, or it's enchanted, or something else....and suddenly, that same invulnerability that keeps him safe 99% of the time is the very thing making it so hard to operate on him, to cut into him and dig out the one bullet that made it past his defenses. Dick, answer me this. What's the first thing you do when you're confronted with a problem?"

"I assess the situation and determine a course of action, I guess," he frowned. "Why?"

"Because when the problem is you, when it's something that's happened to you or something involving your behavior, the kinds of things that a therapist is meant to help you with, you do exactly that. You assess the situation, you assess yourself, your own behavior, and you come to a conclusion. Which means by the time you ever arrive at my doorstep for a session, you've already diagnosed yourself. You've made up your mind. That arrogance that gives you the strength, the certainty, the conviction you need to tackle every other obstacle you face without hesitation, it has you equally convinced that the conclusion you've already drawn about what's wrong with you or your behavior, it must be true. That you've got it already figured out. And so instead of our sessions being about me helping to guide you to a conclusion or helping you find the inconsistencies in your own logic or reasoning - that's not what you're actually there for. Because you're sure you already have the answer, and so instead of looking for it, you're really just looking for it to be validated."

She gave him a moment to absorb that, drawing a breath before continuing.

"And here's where you being so damn smart becomes a problem - because you're brilliant, Dick, just like Bruce is, you know how to read people, you know how to manipulate people, you can do it without even having to think about it. And so instead of telling me what you need to say, you tell me what you think I want to hear. And we get further and further away from actually helping you as you steer our sessions towards the conclusions you've made because of what's bothering you....instead of towards the conclusions you'd draw if you were ready to face it."

Dick leaped to his feet, face flushed in the moonlight. He stepped forward, aborted that when it drew him closer to her and the baby, features twisting in a heart-wrenching moment of agony for the briefest instant before he stepped away again. Carefully breathing in, making a visible effort to drop his voice despite his obvious agitation. Good. Awareness of his surroundings. Thinking beyond the moment to consequences of each action. Engaging more and more with his surroundings. She'd piss him off to Hell and back if that's what it took. Be angry, Dick. Rage. Scream. Yell. Hurt.

"So what?" He asked with a sharp, acidic laugh. He paced, arms buried in his armpits, hunched over, eyes on his boots as he wandered in circles. Pent up, restless energy. All the frenetic motion of Robin, of Nightwing, of a bird made for flying yet still stuck on the ground.

"You think I don't know what's bothering me? You think...I freak out a little and Wally runs to you and tells you something and you come back and find me all freaked out on the floor and you've got it all figured out from there, from just that, but you think I can't figure it out on my own? I'm brilliant, you said, but you think I'm all messed up because I can't face it, I can't see it even when its right in front of me?"

"That's not what I'm saying Dick," Dinah tried, but he just laughed again. Jabbed a hand towards the baby in her arms, took it back halfway.

"I know what happened, Canary," he bit out. "I was there. I don't need you to hold my hand and walk me through it so I can face it. Yeah, okay, I get it. I was raped. Tarantula raped me. I can say it. I'm not - I'm not in denial. I've been doing this since I was ten, I'm not...I know the statistics, I know it's not any different just because I'm a guy. I get that men can get raped, that they can be raped by women, that there's no other word for what happened to me. That it wasn't my fault, that I was in shock, that I can't be blamed for her taking advantage of me in that state. I know all that okay? It's not a fucking revelation to me, I don't need anyone's help to fucking face that!"

"Then what's the problem, Dick?" Dinah asked softly when he ran out of steam, or breath or both. His hair was wild in disarray, his stance a contradiction of defensiveness and a pending attack. His chest heaved like a bellows even though he'd yet to raise his voice past a low-pitched hiss. "If you know all that already, where's the problem? What are you having trouble with here? What reason does someone who's already faced all that have for hiding it from his friends and family for a year?"

"There's no problem, that's my whole point," Dick insisted, throwing his arms wide. "Fine, I freaked out for a minute because I just found out my rapist had my fucking baby, and I thought it was over and done with but....jesus. I'm not...it's not because I can't deal with what happened. God, nothing even happened! It was barely anything. I barely even remember it I was so out of it, and then it was over. She didn't hurt me, its not like it was painful or I was drugged or it left me damaged or something, okay? I told you, I've been doing this for ten years. I've SEEN victims okay, real victims, women and even men who are so fucking traumatized by what some sicko did to them they can barely get out of bed in the morning. I've seen victims left beaten and bloody by their attackers, who've...it was nothing like that, okay?"

Dinah nodded. "And that. That right there. That's exactly what I'm talking about."

Dick blinked and rocked back on his heels. Blindsided by her calm and her seeming non sequitur. "What do you mean?"

"I mean you misdiagnosed," she said with a helpless shrug. "You've been so busy reacting to what you thought was your problem, what you were convinced must be bothering you - whether or not you were able to admit that you were raped, that you could be raped even though you're a man, let alone an accomplished fighter able to protect himself - that you left yourself wide open to something else entirely. Tell me. What do you know about Impostor Syndrome?"

"It's a term sometimes used to describe over-achievers who have trouble internalizing their accomplishments. Perfectionists who think they're frauds because they don't know how to take credit for their own achievements and say its because of luck or timing or something other people did," Dick frowned, puzzling through both the question and the aim of it. He raised an eyebrow. "Doesn't sound like something that applies to someone as arrogant as me."

"Don't be a little shit, Dick," Dinah said with small smirk. "And you're right, I don't think any of that applies to you. However, it's also used in another capacity, to describe trauma survivors who are unable to internalize their own trauma. Who deflect from it, or mitigate it, treat it as less than it is on the basis that it wasn't as bad as what's happened to someone else. It's especially common in trauma survivors who are noted for being especially empathetic or who have caregiver personality types. People who are so used to self-identifying as someone whose role or purpose is in helping others, that they find themselves unable to identify as traumatized because it might shift the focus to themselves instead of people they feel need it more. Does that behavior sound a little more familiar?"

Dick hesitated, eyes on the floor and darting every which way as though looking for escape from a trap.

"It should," she pressed on. "Considering you've been doing that for a long time, much longer than just this past year. Pretty much as long as I've known you, in fact."

"What are you talking about?"

"What do you do whenever someone brings up your parents or their deaths?" Dinah asked softly. He flinched. Ducked his head to the side. Jaw tightened again. "You say it was a long time ago. Or that at least you have Bruce now. Or that you wish other orphaned kids could be as lucky as you ended up. Always shying away from the idea that you might need sympathy or comfort because of what happened to your parents and pointing instead to everyone else who needs it more. And it only got worse when Bruce adopted Jason."

"Don't -" Dick warned. His head snapped back up, fire in his eyes, but she refused to be deterred. Not when she finally had his full attention.

"You never allowed anyone to dwell on any of your myriad traumas once Jason came along. Not just your parents, but what happened with Two-Face, the first time you faced the Joker, nothing. You'd always deflect, always shift things back around to Jason. And what a hard life he'd had. So much harder than you, you insisted. At least your parents loved you. At least they didn't abuse you like Jason's father abused him, or were a drug addict like his mother was. Someone mentioned the time you spent in a juvenile detention center as an eight year old, all because some racist bitch of a social worker didn't like that you were Romani, and your response was that at least you didn't have to live on the streets like Jason did before he met Bruce."

"This has nothing to do with Jason!" Dick ground out, heated.

"It's not about Jason, Dick. It's about you. Because your brother had a hard life, yes. It's true. He suffered terrible traumas before Bruce found him and adopted him. And not a single one of those things are made less true, or invalidated or in any way threatened just because terrible things happened to you too. So why do you insist your pain was less than his? That yours didn't matter just because his existed?"

"It's not the same thing," Dick insisted stubbornly. "You can't compare what happened to my parents to the twelve years of shit Jason had to live through."

"I'm not though, Dick. You are. You're the only one saying one must be worse than the other. All I'm saying is both existed."

She sighed. "Trauma isn't a scale to be measured on. It doesn't require a minimum threshold, and it doesn't have a ranking order. It's not about how much harm was caused or how much damage someone did, because at the end of the day, trauma is transformation."

"What do you mean?"

Dinah held up his broken escrima stick, still cradled in her hand. "Trauma is force that causes change. It's not about the act of damaging. It's about what's left behind once the damage is done. I could break this stick into two pieces. It would take a certain amount of force, a certain amount of damage. And once that was done, we'd be left with two pieces here instead of this one. But then give me another stick the same size, same dimensions, only this one is made of metal. I could break that in two as well. But it would require a whole different kind of force, a whole different order of damage. But in the end, once it was done, we'd still be left with two pieces of that too, instead of the one we started with."

"Two different sticks,” Dinah continued. “Two different traumas. Two different applications of force. And the only thing in common is in the end....both sticks would be transformed. Neither would be what they were originally. Not less. Not more. But different. Changed by the trauma they endured. You want to quantify that trauma? You probably could. It'd be arbitrary, but you could do it. You could calculate the force used, define parameters for the damage it caused. But what would that mean? What's the outcome? What happens because you decided one trauma was greater than the other? How does that alter the fact, the reality, that in the end, the survivors of those two different traumas are changed? Something different from what they started as?"

"But it is different," Dick insisted. He looked confused though, rather than forceful. "Context matters. The situations matter."

"Yes, they do," Dinah agreed. "But it's a question of focus, not degree. Which trauma was worse only really matters when you're focused on the trauma. When you're looking at what the trauma leaves behind though? When you focus on the survivors? All that really matters is...how are they different? How were they changed?"

"Dick, you only started getting angry and frustrated when you compared what you went through to what other rape victims you've seen over the years have gone through. What they went through is terrible, yes. It doesn't mean what happened to you wasn't terrible as well. You said you weren't hurt, it wasn't painful, she didn't damage you physically. That doesn't matter though. Because rape isn't about any of those things. It's not about pain, it's not about how much it hurt. Rape is about theft."

He flinched at that, taking a step back.

"Rape is theft,” Dinah pressed forward. “It's betrayal. It's someone taking something they have no right to, something precious, something that can't be taken back. It's taking away someone's right to choose who they share their body with, its using someone's body against them, against their wishes. That's what Tarantula did to you. Whether it hurt or not, whether you remember it fuzzily or in full detail...she took something from you, something you can't get back, and in doing so, she changed you forever."

He shook his head, eyes back on the ground. Denial but not denial. Acceptance but not acceptance. She forged on.

"And the thing is, you're right. You haven't been in denial about what happened. You know that she raped you, that that's what it is. What you haven't faced though is that it's not about how much that hurt you. It's about how much it changed you. Because you're different now, aren't you? And you're smart enough that you figured that out as soon as it happened, that you're not the same anymore, because I'm willing to bet everything looks different to you now. Because you lost something you didn't even know you could lose until it was gone. A sense of security you took for granted, that something like this could never happen to you, except now you know that it can, and it did. We're all made up of our experiences and your experiences now include something they didn't before, something big, something that left a sizable impact, and the be all and end of it all is that you've changed, and you know that....and you keep looking for an answer as to why. Why is everything so different now? Why are you so different?”

She sighed softly.

“And the problem is the only answer you have for that, you decided wasn't good enough for you. Because it wasn't as bad as it could have been. As bad as what happened to other people. And so you've trapped yourself because you know something's different but the thing that caused it, the thing that changed you....it wasn't big enough to explain this change, you decided. You didn't suffer enough, it didn't hurt enough, and so it's not a good enough reason for you to not be who you used to be. And so you keep finding the flaw in yourself, deciding that it must be that you're weak, that everything unsettling you, upsetting you, it's not because what Tarantula did warrants those changes, it's because you can't cut it. That's what you've been telling yourself, haven't you? You're not a survivor, because you don't think there was anything for you to survive. You're not traumatized because the trauma doesn't count. You didn't suffer enough, so that can't excuse all the turmoil you feel."

Dick paced restlessly, all that frenetic energy he always carried with him ratcheted up in intensity until Dinah was half convinced he was going to shake himself to pieces if he didn't find an outlet soon. Unfortunately, she wasn't quite ready to stop.

"All those other victims you described seeing over the years. When you helped them, did you tell them you were sorry for what they went through?"

Dick paused and raised haggard eyes. "Of course I did. Why?"

"Why did you?" Dinah asked, arching a brow. "You didn't do anything to them. You weren't apologizing for something you caused. So what did it mean, to tell them you were sorry?"

"I don't know. It's just...it's what you do. It's a comfort."

"Why though? What about it makes it a comfort?"

"I don't know, it just is. It lets them know somebody cares, I guess," Dick raged. "What are you getting at? You have all the answers, you tell me!"

"Think it through, Dick," Dinah said, firm. "They don't know you. You're a stranger to them. What does it mean for a stranger to tell a victim they're sorry, that they care. What does it matter? What does it do for them?"

Dick stared at her. His face wide and open and searching as he hunted for answers in the shadows of his room, of his own mind. He looked like he'd run a marathon, his body limp and exhausted seeming, like he was only remaining upright by the barest of threads.

"When I tell someone I'm sorry for what happened to them. I don't know. It tells them I see them, I guess," he said hesitantly. She nodded, encouraging him to go on. "That I see what they've been through. That I'm sorry they went through it."

He focused his eyes on hers, with a little more clarity this time. "I tell them...they survived, I guess. That what happened to them...it didn't just happen, it wasn't supposed to happen. But it did. It mattered. What happened to them mattered."

"Yes," Dinah agreed softly. "And every victim you've ever helped, as Robin or as Nightwing, every survivor you've told 'I'm sorry this happened to you' - every time one of them looks in the mirror and recognizes that they aren't the person they were before it happened, that they've changed...they can hold on to that memory of you saying you're sorry. And they know. It happened. It mattered. It is the reason they're different. It is the reason they changed."

Dinah hesitated, and then she said: "I'm sorry it happened to you, Dick. I'm sorry it changed you. I'm sorry that you can't go back to the way things were. I can't tell you it will get better with time. You aren't injured. This isn't a wound that will scar over if you just leave it alone long enough. You can't heal a transformation. But you can decide what you change into. You can decide who you become, even if its not what you were. It'll still be you. A whole you. A complete you. Just a different you. Just like you became someone different after your parents died. I never knew you before that changed you. But that didn't make the you I met any less worth knowing."

He sobbed. Just once, like it was ripped out of him. A tangled, tormented wreck of a sound, his face contorted in a rictus of misery beneath eyes that glistened with a watery sheen, reflecting the wan illumination. It was all he allowed himself, before he found his usual iron control and slammed the gates shut, expression going blank, but it was enough. It was a beginning.

"It's like quantum mechanics, huh," Dick said, like he was testing himself, his voice, once he'd given himself a minute to settle. It was hoarse with emotion but it steadied as he remembered how to use it, how to calm it. "The actual act of observing things affects reality on a quantum level. Defines it. Things exist in a state of flux, of indeterminate potential, until observing them settles them into the form they're observed in. Maybe...maybe acknowledging someone else's...trauma, makes it more real."

"Maybe," Dinah conceded thoughtfully. "I mean, I'm no Boy Genius so that's not somewhere my mind would go. I could see how someone who was, however, might arrive at that metaphor. I would be careful about relying too much on it though."

He frowned. "Why's that?"

"Defining reality through someone else's observations is a two way street. Someone relying on that metaphor could infer the wrong thing from it," she said. "For instance, they might convince themselves that the less they remembered an event, the less other people knew about it, the less real it was. Like if it was fuzzy enough and they never told anyone else, that could make it not real. Like it never happened."

"Oh," he said, subdued. "Yeah, I could see how that could happen."

"Did it?" Dinah probed. "Do you think that has anything to do with why you didn't tell anyone?"

"I don't know. Maybe, I mean, I guess? It wasn't anything conscious, I don't think, I just...I wanted to forget," Dick shrugged. Sighed. Scratched at his eyebrow. Cast a sidelong glance at the baby still sleeping contentedly in her arms. "Look how well that worked out anyway."

She pursed her lips and nodded. "Do you resent him for that?"

"What? No," Dick snapped his head back. "God. Artemis kinda asked the same thing, why do people keep doing that? He's a baby, Canary, he's like...two days old, he didn't do anything wrong."

"I'm not trying to insinuate anything, Dick. We have to ask because it would be normal if you did. We all make associations in our brain, whether we like it or not. We're hard-wired to connect dots, and he's connected to well, to your trauma. It might not be pretty, but it'd be understandable. But if you say you don't, then you don't. I believe you."

He shook his head again, jaw clenched tight, lip jutting out - sullen, angry. At who though, Dinah couldn't guess. Too many options. Her. Tarantula. The world. Then he cast a hesitant, almost shy glance at her, peeking up from beneath his lashes. He licked his lips. Stuttered. Then: "Do you think he looks like me?"

She glanced down at the baby in her arms, but checked herself and cocked her head to study Dick more closely before answering. Tried to gauge his intent with that. "Why? Do you think there's a chance he's not actually yours?"

Dick just shook his head vigorously.

"No," he laughed, though not quite as acidic as before. Still with a flair of self-deprecation though. Still. Baby steps. She'd take any improvement over none at all. "Between the timing and everything else, I mean, yeah there's maybe a one and a million chance he's not, but pretty sure that'd just be denial talking. No, I just. I was just wondering. Do you think he looks like me?"

She nodded and then sighed through her nose, looking down again but more thoroughly this time. It was the first she'd allowed herself to really study the child in her arms, to be honest. But yes, yeah she could see it. His skin was a soft brown a little bit darker than Dick's own Romani heritage could account for - she vaguely remembered reading in a file somewhere that Tarantula was Latina, so the blending of those two ancestries would explain it. She'd always thought it a bit silly to read things like jawline or noses or other facial features into a newborn, all chubby cheeked and round faced and likely to grow out of it in time anyway. But even with that she could see how someone might make the case that the shape of the child's features roughly matched Dick's. Not much hair yet, just faint wisps of what was to come, a few fuzzy black strands sticking out every which way. He was sleeping now, having tuckered himself out with his crying jags earlier, but she could still remember her first glimpse of his baby blue eyes. They were called that because lots of babies had blue eyes when they were born, settling into their true coloring over time. But those eyes had been all Dick Grayson. She was willing to bet they were staying exactly as they were.

"Yes," she said at last. "He looks like you."

Dick glanced away, but not before she saw a soft, barely perceptible curve of his lip as though pleased. Quickly masked, but she was taking notes after all.

"That's what I thought when I first saw him," he said, almost gruffly. He exhaled heavily. "You asked if I resent him? No. It's...god. Honestly, I think maybe it'd be easier if I did."

She furrowed her brow and waited for him to continue. He didn't disappoint, resuming his pacing.

"I never really thought about having kids, you know?" He started, and she nodded, pangs shooting through her at the absent reminder of just how young he still was. "I mean. Bruce sat me down when I was fourteen and we had The Talk, I guess, and so I thought about it a little then, like what would happen if I accidentally got a girl pregnant. But I never really thought like, I wanted them, you know? Or if I ever did have one, maybe it'd be when I was older and like, I could adopt, like Bruce did, because I know how many kids already out there need homes and maybe I could pay it forward? But I never figured it was a big deal if I never had any of my own, like biologically or whatever, it wasn't something I needed."

He stopped. Swallowed. Stared at the baby for a long while, the child shifting in Dinah's arms as though aware of his father's intense scrutiny.

"But then I was there, and the prison doctor or whatever...she showed him to me, and he looked like me, I thought. But also...he looked like my dad. And my grandpa. Because we had pictures, I don't know what happened to them when my parents died, I only got to grab a few things from out trailer and I didn't know where they were, but I remember seeing them. Baby pictures from my dad's family, the Graysons, going back...I don't know, I think almost all the way back to World War II? My family was in Poland at the time and, I don't...I don't know what all happened back then, because I was too young to talk about stuff like that, I figured my parents were probably planning on telling me more when I was older. But I was just looking at him, and remembering all those baby pictures of all the men in my father's family, and my dad teaching me the trapeze when I was five and telling me how his dad taught him when he was that age and his dad him going back and back and back because my family had been in the circus for like, forever."

He drew a short breath, like he was steadying himself.

"And I was looking at him, like, this little tiny baby in my arms, and thinking he looked just like me, and just like Dad, and it hit me, you know? And I just remember thinking that...that for the last ten years I've been the last of the Flying Graysons, the last one there'd ever be, probably. And now I'm not anymore."

"And then...," he stopped, choking on the words, face screwed up like he was in pain and Dinah half started out of her seat in alarm before he bent over at the waist to gasp for air, raising a hand to ward her off. He straightened, found his breath again. "And then I just, for a second I felt...god. I was almost grateful, you know? To her. And how messed up is that? I hate her. I know what she did, and I hate her for it but then I'm looking at this little baby in my arms, another Grayson, and he's something I never knew I even wanted and might never have had if it hadn't happened and I don't...god, that's so fucked up and I don't know what to do with that I don't know how to handle that, I hate her, I do, I _need_ to."

"Dick. Stop. Breathe," Dinah said, and she was up and at his side in an instant.

"I can't," he gasped, tears prickling at the edge of his eyes, cheeks flushed, staring up at her desperately, still hunched, still wheezing. "I can't, I don't...I....I need to..."

"I think you need to hold your son is what you need to do," Dinah said softly. "I think that's the only thing you need to do right this second. Can you do that for me?"

It was a gamble, and a dirty play at that. And yes, she did know enough about babies to be aware they were not pacifiers and should not be used as such, thanks ever so much. But protective instincts were built into the core of who Dick Grayson was in a way that wasn't entirely normal (or healthy, for that matter, but a problem for a different day there). Give him a mission: protect this small child - and he'd move heaven and hell to see it through. 

Or even possibly head off an emerging panic attack.

Definitely nothing she'd recommend trying at home, and not exactly a road to long term recovery, but well. Problems for another day.

And if this happened to backfire, sure, she'd hate herself forever but seeing as how self-recriminations were very much in vogue tonight, why waste a perfectly good theme?

Frantic breaths still whistled in and out of his nose as he stared at her in alarm. He shook his head, abruptly terrified. "No. I can't...he's sleeping. What if I wake him up?"

"Then he'll be awake," Dinah said firmly, guiding his arms into the proper positioning as she maneuvered the precious bundle from her arms into his. "And it'll still be okay."

The boy that wasn't yet a man but couldn't any longer be a child stared down at the tiny thing in his arms, enraptured and afraid to breathe all at the same time. Dinah huffed a quiet laugh. "You know, I had this whole thing scripted out for asking you how you felt about him and what you wanted to do, that you have options and whatever you wanted to do, it'd be okay, it'd be perfectly understandable."

He nodded absently, still entirely focused on the being in his hands.

"Kinda looks like I don't need any of that after all," she finished casually.

"What if I can't, though," he breathed out, like the possibility of failure was a pained confession it hurt him to admit. "What if....Canary, I shouldn't, I mean...I don't know what I'm doing, I don't know how to do this."

"Let me let you in on a little secret, kiddo. I'm pretty sure nobody ever does. They figure it out. Or they don't. You however, have a pretty damn good track record at figuring things out."

That quieted him for a time.

"If I keep him," he said at last, drawing the words out slowly. "Everyone will know. Won't they? What happened to me. It's either that or they think I wanted to...with her...and I don't want that. Ever."

"Yeah," Dinah said reluctantly. "Probably. Yeah. I guess it comes down to whether or not you're willing to let her be the reason for what you decide."

He nodded, and she put a hand on his shoulder and stared over it at the tiny little thing full of potential and possibility.

"It's not either or, Dick. Just because something good came of it doesn't mean what happened wasn't terrible. And just because something terrible happened doesn't mean something good can't come of it. There's room for space in between."


End file.
